Palmieri: ‘I Have Learned a Lot in Recent Weeks’ About Electoral College, Didn’t Know Electors Were Supposed To Deliberate

12 Dec 2016

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” former Hillary for America Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri stated that she has “learned a lot” about the Electoral College “in recent weeks,” including learning that the Electoral College is “supposed to be a deliberative process,” and “what that process was really supposed to be, and what the role of the elector was supposed to be.”

Palmieri said that while the Russians did succeed in interfering in the election, it was “hard to know,” if they actually swung the result of the election to President-Elect Donald Trump.

She further commented on the effort by some members of the Electoral College to receive intelligence briefings before they voted by stating that Clinton has still conceded the election, but that this cause was “worthy” for the campaign to weigh in on.

Palmieri continued, “I have learned a lot in recent weeks” about the Electoral College, which “was intended that the electors deliberate. That’s among the reasons why it happens a month later, and Alexander Hamilton, looms so large in our life right now, and in his Federalist essay on the Electoral College, noted they — it’s supposed to be a deliberative process, and one of the reasons why it exists is to protect against a foreign government…interfering in our elections. so pretty stunning.”

Palmieri added that electors haven’t taken a deliberative role, and “I did not know this, and I work in politics. We’ve had dozens of academics and legal scholars that have come our way, shared a lot of information, a lot of thoughts about this, and that’s where I first understood what that process was really supposed to be, and what the role of the elector was supposed to be.”